November 16, 2011

  • Paper Crafting!

    Years ago, I put together a Handicraft schedule for FIVE years worth of projects to do with kids.  I collected them in preparation for schooling with my kids.  Since then?  I… haven’t done one of them.  Isn’t that sad?  All that work?  Maybe it’ll benefit someone else who uses my homeschool archive hereabouts.  Or maybe I’ll re-visit them now that I’m thinking about ‘em… maybe try a few.

    But what we’ve been doing for handicrafts is… well, whatever the Spirit moves us to do.  The BEST thing to motivate us, we’ve found, is having pen-pals.  What we do is – every other Friday – on payday -  when Mama sits down to do bills and balance the checkbook, the kids sit down and make something to send to the pen-pals.  Partly because they HATE writing, don’t know what to write, and every other week is a lot of letter-writing on top of daily copywork and grammar paragraphs.  They just get frustrated with that.  And I get frustrated, because I have to pretty much write the letter and they copy it… and that sucks.  Postcards are fun, but don’t allow for error, much.  And we occasionally send pictures, too…

    But making cards or little paper crafts is fun.  And the way I see it, children don’t care what they get in the mail, as long as they GET mail.  If it’s something bright and fun, that’s even better.  And more?  If we craft this way, I can take pictures of what they make, we have ‘record’ of the craft, AND we gifted our work (meaning someone else enjoys it, too, and Mama doesn’t have to store it!)  I probably shouldn’t say that out loud, since a few of the pen-pals are kids of my friends here ((BLUSH!))… but hey, you know me n’ honesty.

    We started small.  I probably shouldn’t give away all my secrets (I’m going to, anyhow), but we started with a basic cut-out from the RobertSabuda (link) site.  It was this mouth cut into the paper (link), but if you cut the line jagged instead of straight, you got awesome teeth, and could color a tiger or lion or monster face on the inside, so that the penpal would open the card and make it ‘talk’.  ((My kids had a ball playing with these before they made it in the envelope.))  The project took virtually NO time at all, everyone could do it, and they loved the results.  Beware, pen-pal moms, we’re probably going to make more of his pop-ups as time goes on, too!


    (click to enlarge… I think.  I hope!)

    I got a book out of the library… I think it was the Usborne’s big book of crafts for children.  Many of them were really… eh, but the fingerprint animals were absolutely adorable.  So I got out my stamp stuff (ink pads, cleaner, etc) and we made the animals as a border around another little letter, using them to decorate what they wrote.

    Another project (noteably BIGGER) was to make this pop-dot owl picture (link).  It was basically printing the pattern on colored papers, cutting it out, and gluing the layers.  We don’t have pop-dots in our house (I know, and I’m a scrapbooker, too – shame on me!!), but we have those foam shapes, and they glue together really well and work the same.  It turned out so gorgeous, I have one on the side of my bed, tucked in the front of a picture I’d had on the side table.

    Yet another project we did was to make fun little corner bookmarks for our pen-pals.  The tutorial for them is at Positively Peaches (link), and my hubbie (Brian) liked them so much, we had to make extras to keep.  My friend Ali(dansma) liked them so much she ran with the idea and did them for a 4-H project with her goat-y group!  They’re really easy and very, very cute… and a hit with everyone, all the way around.

    I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it, but I found a really fun looking project that was all about folding and taping down strips of paper.  It’s a Dutch art called ‘iris folding’, and I have a ‘scrap sack’ full of paper scraps just perfect for this.  I loved the way it looked… so we did hot air balloons (pattern link) for the penpals!  We had so much fun, we did ice cream cones for ourselves, and flowers for Lydia and I, as well.  The Circle of Crafters website (link) has a TON of iris folding patterns, and they’re quite easy to do.  ((NoTe:  Taking a strip of masking tape and sticking it to the edge of the table for the kids to cut/work from is ideal… and scotch tape does NOT work as well as the masking tape, either.))

    Next came Rosh Ha’Shana, and – since we had the scrap sack out – were inspired to make an ‘apples & honey’ card for the pen-pals (it’s customary for Jews to send their well-wishes in cards at Rosh Ha’Shana, anyhow).  I think the cards turned out very well, don’t you?  They certainly had a good time just gluing little paper squares down – and the pattern (such as it was) was simple – I drew two circles where the apples went and a square where they would make a honey pot!

    Our latest paper project was quilling.  I found this INCREDIBLE quilling blog (link) by a woman named Inna, and… this woman spends months on just one project.  It’s incredible – and I think the way I found her was looking for Jewish cards.  She does a LOT of Hebraic-inspired stuff.  Her quilled mesuzah is just phenomenal.  She makes EGGS out of quilled paper.  And oh, what is quilling?  It’s taking thin strips of paper and winding them around a toothpick, then shaping them into things.  I made a flower card (for our English neighbor’s daughter) and a turtle card (for her son), and Isaac made a penguin card for his pen-pal, while Lydia and I did peacocks based on this (link)… oh, here, let me show you our work:


    My first (rush job) attempt at quilling, for the neighbor kids.
    The flower from a pattern, the turtle was my own.

     
    Our second attempts… for the pen-pal cards.  Not too badly done!

     
    Presently, I’m working on this one… well, intermittently.  (Link)  It’s a little involved, and I have to learn to do dandelions and roses (she has tutorials for both), but I think this is beautiful.  And I’m brainstorming things I can do to turn quilling into an ornament for our handmade gifts this year.  We’ll see how that goes – right now, I’m set back the fuschia, as I pulled mine off the picture to turn into a card for the baby shower we went to, hehehe!

    Anyhow, I’m collecting paper crafting ideas for pen-pal cards.  It’s a great way for the kids to connect with their friends and be creative at the same time.  And we have such fun with it!

Comments (6)

  • Here I was saying I wasn’t adding any more projects until I finished my mile long list.  Oh well.  Love the owls and quilling.

  • I so need those corner book marker monsters. My whole family has come down on me about my folding the corner of the page when I read. I have never found a book mark I like that actually stays put. But if I make those with big enough teeth… I think that might do the trick. LOL

    At first glance I thought the Iris Folding was the biggest waste of paper and tape I ever saw (I youtubed how to do it) but overall I think the end product is quite remarkable!!! I might just give this a go with my crew! Thanks for the links!

  • Oh, dear – I’m gonna have to hide these links for a while. Don’t need any more paper crafts right now……but those Owls!!!!

    Hey – check your email! :wink:

  • Spinner mom mentioned you in one of her posts so I thought I’d pop over and take a look!! Loving that quilling I’ve seen it before but didn’t know you did it with a cocktail stick, that’s a future project I think!

  • My sister loves quilling! She wants em to do that for a 4-H project – last night we made felt from wool and felted soap. She thinks we shoudl quill the cards to go with the “holiday gift – thing” in December – I don’t know if the 4-H kids are ready for quilling, but maybe they are.

    PS Danny LOVES getting stuff in the mail. He is always disappointed that we don’t have cool stuff to send back.

  • Have Danny send the same things back in his own design! It’s just technique… and Isaac would LOVE it. Did you get his penguin? He nearly made two so they could have a snowball fight. But he’s impatient and life was calling, you know. :p

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